UConn rivalry with Tennessee hits 10 years

Published 7:00 pm, Friday, January 7, 2005

STORRS - The original plan was to get a game against an Atlantic Coast Conference school.

The matchup the UConn women's basketball team wanted on its 1994-95 schedule was North Carolina.

Since the Tar Heels eliminated the Huskies in the NCAA tournament the previous season - UNC won 81-69 in the East Regional Final - the game would provide the perfect rematch scenario.

There was just one problem. North Carolina was not interested.

"We were talking (with Tom McElroy of the Big East Conference) about how to get more ESPN games and the conference had an agreement with ESPN to show a women's game," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. "They were trying to accommodate the Big East and the ACC. They tried to get us together with an ACC school and for whatever reason could not reach an agreement."

Still wanting to get a television deal done, UConn and the Big East looked elsewhere to find an opponent. One school was very interested in setting up a game - Tennessee.

So UConn and Tennessee struck up a two-year, home-and-home deal with each other to start in the 1994-95 season.

Ten years later, the meeting between the two teams has become the premier game in women's college basketball. The two continue the rivalry today at the Hartford Civic Center at 2 p.m.

"The thing that sticks out to me (in the first game) is all the media attention that game got," former UConn and New Fairfield High star Jennifer Rizzotti said. "I know it's commonplace for UConn now, but not back then. It was so new and exciting. You had a tingly feeling about it."

That tingly feeling never went away.

The two teams have played each other at least once every season since the Jan. 16, 1995 game, which the Huskies won 77-66. The first meeting pitted the Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the country - UConn was ranked second - against each other.

Winning that game also helped elevate the Huskies from pretenders to contenders.

"Some of the things I remember most is probably just the transition of this program from being a New England school, (just) winning games in the New England area and non-conference games," said UConn assistant coach Jamelle Elliott, who also played for the Huskies in the 1995 game. "But for the first time after that game, we became a national program."

UConn beat Tennessee again later that season in the 1995 national championship game to win its first NCAA title.

The 1995 game also supplied plenty of national interest. For the first time, the Associated Press delayed its release of the Top 25 for one day pending the outcome of the game.

"Obviously it was a beginning of a great rivalry and certainly I think with the East Coast media being involved, it gave the exposure of that game, not just the first game, but more importantly, games after," Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said. "It was huge in terms of level of exposure that both programs and, probably more importantly, the women's game received as a result of the matchup."

The national interest in the game continues to this day.

In addition to the 10 Connecticut papers, six out-of-state media outlets have received credentials for today's game. Four WNBA coaches also are attending to scout players.

"All of a sudden it becomes really fashionable to pay attention to women's basketball," Auriemma said. "If we had something to do with that, us and Tennessee, which I think we did, then I think that's pretty important for us here in Connecticut to understand that."

All 19 games between UConn and Tennessee have been nationally televised, and the two schools have faced each other seven times in the NCAA tournament. Four of the games have been for the national championship.

"I'm not surprised that the rivalry is where it's at now," Summitt said. "And the reason I say that is because how that first game started out and just the positions that both programs have been in for the last 10 years in women's basketball."

Last season's NCAA title game between UConn and Tennessee was the most-watched basketball game - college or professional, men's or women's - ESPN has ever shown. The tip-off between UConn's Jessica Moore and Tennessee's Ashley Robinson still is used in the opening of SportsCenter, the network's daily highlight show.

"I was pleasantly surprised with the way the game was played and the effect it had," Auriemma said. "I never thought a crowd would completely understand or get into something as much as they got into that. That is still the best it has ever been, regardless."